Down the Mall: Furry taste in the
mouth explained

By
Wayne Gregson

July 19, 2014, 4 a.m.

Hack! Cough! Pass the Listerine, please. A bloke well known to DTM wondered why the rest of the family were laughing at him when he was roused from his deep slumber in front of the TV – with the large black cat asleep on his chest.

Hack! Cough! Pass the Listerine, please. A bloke well known to DTM wondered why the rest of the family were laughing at him when he was roused from his deep slumber in front of the TV – with the large black cat asleep on his chest.

“What? What’s so funny.”

Between chortles, he was told the family had been just a minute too late reaching for a camera, to grab a pic of the cat with its paw deep inside his open snoring mouth.

Reckons he’s had a furry sensation in his mouth ever since.

Fearing the worst

We have some sympathy for one Eaglehawk mum whose adult son is wandering around Europe just now.

She knew he was in Pamplona and was watching the horrific footage of Aussie blokes being gored during the running of the bulls.

The wander didn’t answer his phone.

Didn’t answer his texts.

Didn’t reply to Facebook contacts or any other social media… for more than two days.

Eventually, she contacted a mate travelling with her son and told her to give her bloke a jab in the ribs and get him to phone home.

First he claimed to have been very busy, but eventually let out the full story of taking part in the ludicrously dangerous bull run and the following bull-chasey session in a bull ring… ummmm, followed by a two-day party.

Now, it’s called the Running of the Bulldust.

Gaol shenanigans

DTM just came across one of the oddest bits of Bendigo history: a riot in the Bendigo Gaol in January 1857.

There was an armed clash between the guards, the military and fair chunk of the prison population, according to the Ballarat Courier, including “the notorious Fitzgerald, the horse stealer.”

It’s not until you read what sparked this mass uprising that the story assumes an oddly typical Bendigo air.

Three days earlier, the military confiscated 20 cases (240 bottles) of illegal brandy from a Long Gully auction room, and had nowhere to store it safely, so, one bright spark thought it’d be quite safe … in the female prison cell.

Stuff could be passed from one cell to another and within one day, most of it had disappeared.

It was later commented that matters could have become fatal if more of the inmates were capable of standing.

Poor old mum

As in so many things, it was all a matter of timing.

In a central Bendigo pub one busy lunchtime this week, a Bendigo family was happily discussing what was lacking in young people’s diet these days.

The talk went around to the mountains of peas which once graced the earlier generation’s plates.

Then, just at one of those odd silent gaps in the general pub hubbub, mum announced: “That’s the trouble these days, there’s not enough pea-ness on our plates.”